With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

What's a Unicron? Is it relavent to the surrender of the Decepticons? And I've seen people mention all the bad blood the long war has made between the two sides. Could things really end with a simple beheading of the leadership and a peaceful surrender?

 

So, Nazi World Paul is going to make the Common Sense decision to go with The SI to Earth-16, right? Not going to do the dumb, “I should stay here and try to fix this world.” Shit, right?

Going to an actual regular-ish DC world with your ‘brother’ who’s obviously very well off for himself and get a Ring and Lantern and get to use them with a version of you that was very successful is what you SHOULD do.

Not staying on Nazi World just because Not-Superman Sad.

 

I support this because I think having another Paul could help Illustres Paul push forward with trying to uplift Earth and Earth-16 should be an Earth Paul Freeman can live with. The Nazi Earth just feels far too polluted and gone. Overman contributed to that, and now has the self reflection to see the German victory as a possible loss for the world.

Main SI Paul could use a kind of sounding board and alternate viewpoint and Freeman would be similar but differing in that he is not enlightened and would just be starting out on the Lantern skill tree. I could see an issue with Earth-16 characters seeing Freeman and kind of comparing him to Paul, but at the same time Freeman could maybe see angles Paul is not fully considering.

If the offer is made Freeman should grasp it with both hands and all his legs. Nazi Earth is just a lost cause or would take too long to create viewpoints that still probably would not be honest about the past genocide that built up Nazi Earth's history.

EDIT: Had an idea for how this could happen. At the end of this whole story arc, at the end Paul Freeman could be named by Superman as his representative to Earth-16.

 

A quick run down (with my potentially somewhat wrong) layman's knowledge of the subject is:

Robot Satan from space.

G1 had him as a living planet that went around eating other planets, but in Prime he's the core of Earth. Not sure about any of the other continuities.

Most Cybertronians (depending on continuity) are born directly from The All-Spark (or whatever that universe decides to call it), which is literally the robo-soul of their creator god Primus. Unicron isn't exactly a fan of Primus and wants to corrupt and/or kill every Cybertronian because of it, or at the very least acts as a malignant force across the universe destroying everything that he doesn't like, which then puts him in conflict with the main cast of the show/comic/game.

 

As it happened in Canon? No. Too many issues were handwaved by bad writing.

A bad writer can write whatever he wants, that doesn't mean it makes sense or that it doesn't break established Canon.

Unicron is a multidimensional planet consuming, planet sized God transformer, that breaks the narrative cohesion of the verse in its knees because writers wanted cool shit that could be made into awesome toys not stuff that make thematic sense.

 

Unicron is a planet-sized evil robot god.

Exactly what's going on with him depends on which Transformers setting you're talking about. Transformers Prime doesn't dwell on it. There, the significant thing is that the crust of the planet Earth built up around his recumbent body. Him starting to wake up causes earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and allows him to create avatars from rock to attack things. Him completely waking up... Well, the Earth shifts into the shape of a humanoid robot. That's not survivable.

In the series Autobots and Decepticons fight their way into his core and shoot it with the Matrix of Leadership, putting him back offline but wipes out Optimus Prime's memory of being Optimus Prime. Until the end of the show, where Unicron possesses Megatron, torturing his spirit while controlling his body. Right at the end Unicron gets exorcised and it looks like he's about to start the war back up, and he decides not to.

In G1 that pretty much happened after Unicron's attack. The Autobots surrendered and Bludgeon (who was in charge at the time) accepted it on the grounds that both sides had better things to do than fight each other over a pile of scrap.

It's a big galaxy, and the Nazis only have a couple of planets.

 

Who's the Green Lantern of Nazi-Earth again? (also what's the universe/Earth-code for it?).
I wonder if Paragon will repeat what he did on Demon Earth and ping the local Guardians for interdimensional assistance.

 

If you mean who has Alan's ring, it's some unnamed Nazi. If you mean for the Sector, then, if nothing's changed, it should be Abin Sur and Starkaor.

 

Generally it depends on continuity if the war can end.

In Prime they are basically just fighting out their grudges in exile since there is nothing better to do and they cant create new life. But whomever could reactivate the Well of Sparks could create new Transformers. Once that happens, they would gain a significant advantage.

The Earth-based Cybertronians basically managed a ceasefire after Unicron possessed Megatron and forced them to work together. So the remaining Decepticons didnt contest the Autobots rebuilding Cybertron.

So in the sense of Prime, the war could be ended aside from the fact that there are million-year blood feuds between various individuals. But those could continue in a ceasefire. The main conflict is largely driven by Megatron and those he has following him. If that was decapitated it would definitely end the war on a large scale since few could properly maintain order enough to keep the rest of the Decepticons united in their war. Especially if the Autobots offered an alternative. Even Starscream barely managed to maintain power over the course of S1, and that was with Megatron comatose. In the longterm it probably would have fallen apart if Megatron had died.

In G1, Cybertron was not a dead world and was in fact Decepticon-controlled. The Autobots had lost the war and retreated to Earth.

In the IDW comics, they teamed up against Unicron and then resettled a renewed Cybertron, plus neutral Cybertronians who also returned from the war. It was a very fascinating period that led to some interesting politics as they handled the post-war grudges.

In general Unicron as an existential threat is good at ending the war. And he isnt exactly Satan. That would be Liege Maximo. Unicron is more like the World Serpant or something.

 

Ah. The solution of having a bigger, scarier bad guy make everyone unite, and pave over past conflict out of necessity. I liked how they did it in OPM best. Despite that being a subversion of the trope.

 

To be fair to Prime and IDW, it didn't erase the old conflicts. IDW had a very unstable political situation in the new Cybertronian civilization and took a lot of work to stabilize.

And the war somewhat restarted in the sequel to Prime, Robots in Disguise.

 

Or the Baroness heard his voice and paired it to the previous wielder of the Orange Lantern Ring that she knew of.

 

I agree that peace is possible after aeons of fighting and most of the high class of suffering peddlers being already killed/destroyed, the Decepticons had achieved their goals so in a sense it its accurate to say Megatron was the leading reason why the war kept going. But it had to get there before peace could be feasible... Peace as Optimus wanted with the high class still being around in their same position of power but with the slaves now having some rights wouldn't have worked, too many slaves had been driven into a frenzy by Megatron speeches, their hopelessness was exchanged by rage, the high class getting away with it wasn't going to fly and Optimus was an idiot for trying.

Optimus turned the easy purge into a very destructive Civil War, and Megatron kept it going well past the point were both factions could negotiate a peace deal.

 

Optimus didnt want to keep them in their high positions. It is also worth noting that many of Mrgatron's inner circle were leaders under the Functionism regime of Sentinel Prime. Shockwave was a senator and Starscream governed a city.

So it wasnt just former slaves vs elites. The Autobots also had many lower caste among them. The primary difference wasnt status, it was philosophy. Megatron believed in might making right. He actually has a lot in common with Vandal Savage imo.

Megatron didnt declare war because of anything Optimus did. He did it immediately after Optimus was declared Prime. Optimus was awarded the position because of his oratory skill and because he actually had a plan beyond simple revolution. He was a leader who was trying to fix their society, and had actially managed it. Megatron was simply jealous that he wasnt the one to do it.

 

I always thought of him as being like an Evil Galactus.

 

Shockwave and Staracream aren't representative of the average Decepticon.

Second that was the point I made, the same speeches that inspired a bored librarian are the ones that made the slaves bloodlusted, there was only one road ahead and Optimus absolutely failed to see that most of the Decepticons wanted the elite to be scrab and wouldn't take any peaceful alternative as a replacement.

The ship for peaceful solutions sailed when Megatron became super popular, thus Optimus failed attempts at peace building was akin to sailing a broken ship that is full of holes during a massive storm IE destined to fail, either the elite was purged and turned to scrab, or the ranks of the proto Decepticons had to be purged of those that wouldn't accept peace... IE a lot of them.

 

Megatron was not that powerless. He himself was influential enough to keep enough in line to prevent war. At worst some would go crazy but would lack the proper leadership to be a threat. Especially as Megatron could direct his forces to put them down.

At the time of Optimus' ascension, they were not too far gone yet. After all, Megatron had wanted the title for himself. It was why they had gone to speak to the council. It was after that, that Megatron really went to bloody war.

To me it sounds like you are saying that Optimus should have submitted to a tyrant siezing power and creating an opressive, xenophobic, and expansionist regime that would opress billions and conquer the galaxy. Submitting to tyrants is not a proper solution just to avoid a civil war.

 

The system had to be dismantled because it was abhorrent, what Optimus should have done was to reject the title of Primus when it was offered to him and use the shock of the rejection as a platform to highlight everything that was wrong with the system. If NotOptimusyet had dragged the offer through the mud as it deserved then there is absolutely no chance in hell anyone else in the proto Decepticons would have taken it including Megatron. That would have also earned him the respect of the entire faction and secured him enough of a power base to have them accept his ideas of a less destructive revolution with everything it entailed.

It has always been my belief that Optimus got played when he took the offer to be Primus, because it divided the reformation faction to a huge degree.

I mean what would have happened if Megatron took the title of Primus? He probably would have challenged them to combat as an equal and enacted change in the only way he knew it worked by fighting and killing them. Would he had declare himself God of cybertron afterwards (if he won) maybe, but there is a fair chance he would have also retired right there and there as there would be no enemy for him to fight.

 

So a thought's occurred to me about where the falling out between Batman and Paul could come from.

Zoat has confirmed that Jason won't be brained by the Joker and will consider Paul a true brother, therefore my theory is that Paul has to use meta-knowledge in some obvious way to save the kid from his fate and then has to explain said meta-knowledge to Batman.

Now, I can see two ways that Batman responds: if Zoat goes down Control-Freak Batman (my least favourite interpretation of the character) then Batman will get angry that Paul hasn't provided him with the information and paranoid about what Paul knows. Unlikely, but possible.

The second, more reasonable option, would be Batman not knowing what he could trust from Paul, which of his actions were true and honest and which ones came from him crafting a facade based on what he knows about the characters. He could also be, very understandably, DEEPLY hurt by the (at that point) actual YEARS of lies of omission that Paul had been telling everyone. And finally he could also question what Paul knew about events that had happened and whether or not he allowed some pretty awful shit to happen and for people to suffer for some unknowable goal.

As I'm sure you can tell by how much more fleshed out the second one is, it's my bet on the most likely option.



And, as always when we speculate on content to come, may the Word of God strike me down should I be wrong.

 

But Optimus already outlined what was wrong with thr system. That was the whole reason he was named Prime. The system was already going out the door. Not to mention that being Prime had nothing to do with Functionism and predated it. Functionism was instituted by Sentinel Prime I believe.

Megatron absolutely would not have retired. He was not simply an idealist. He planned to revive Nova Prime's "golden age" of conquest and colonization of alien worlds based on cybertronian supremacy. He was already a brutal tyrant.

The movement was not splintered by Optimus. It was splintered by Megatron seeking personal power at the expense of the greater good. Optimus wanted to work with Megatron. Megatron was the one who threw a tantrum because he didnt get to be God-King of Cybertron. And it was Megatron who tainted Cybertron with Dark Energon, which necessitated the shutdown.

 

I'm amused that the arrogant Nazi has had the carpet pulled under her feet from one of her superiors knowing about this and not telling her. Now we'll get to see Paul interact with competent super-Nazis. Hopefully they aren't trying to lure Paul to a trap or something.

 

This should probably go without saying but I really do not like what we've seen of nazi-earth barring Overman and Angelika, and I'm starting to worry that Paul is going to live and let live once this whole demon-earth thing is sorted out instead of doing anything or even helping his poor alternate who ended up stuck there.

 

Was this supposed to be with Orange quotes? Or was this the Baroness?

 

'it doesn't'

'it appears'

Yeah, what kind of Nazi/fascist/totalitarian government lacks a police state?

That's not so nice.

I think that this is genuinely the best we can expect from that asshole.

I'd say it does since if he is then Paul is going to have to cooperate with the Douchebag Supreme.

If this guy has the same reservations about Nazism that Karl and Angelika then he may have become my favorite Earth 10 character with the quote above.

Of course he did, of course.

I think he's done a host of other things that are inappropriate.

To be fair, a person can be intelligent in one area but they may be a complete idiot in other areas.

 

It's probably just the name and the Nazi thing, but the semi-comedy in this update is reminding me of the Baroness villain from Wonderella- which is also a reminder that I haven't caught up on it in a while.

Thinking about magic and multidimensional travel, since Paragon's soul is kinda-sorta the Ophidian's, does that mean that his Ophidian is theoretically present wherever he is? I wonder if the Ophidians of the universes he goes to can sense that. I know they're all presumably still trapped by Larfleeze so it doesn't functionally matter, but I wonder how they'd react. Also, what happens to wholly immaterial beings like gods? they can travel to non/lower-thaumic worlds by creating material avatars, but I'm wondering if they'd be similarly powerless if they entered a different dimension's thaumosphere or they could theoretically fully cross over (not a good idea for Demon Earth without a ton of personal protection, of course).

I'm now wondering if Paragon can spread cooperation through enlightened self-interest to all Ophidians and end up with a giant (both in terms of number and individual size) metaphysical snake army (some would say harem).

I kind of want to see the awkwardness and tension of Paragon calling up Nazi Earth's Doctor Mist or Black Adam to help out with the magical invasion (Is Nabu's Helm around in some Nazi collection or still buried in Egypt/Kahndaq? Paragon would most likely avoid him, of course, but I'm curious. Not sure how the Nazis viewed ancient Egyptians and other Near Eastern civilizations).

 

Iirc, part of his reasoning for not going there and wrecking shit immediately was that the war is over.

All the purging and genocide is over and can't really be undone without mass necromancy.

The people living there are the descendants of the monsters and not really guilty of their crimes.

The best they can hope for is a gradual reform and realisation of what their ancestors did and Karl is already doing that.

 

He did leave the Crime Syndicate intact, even though he may have been able to destroy them himself, on Earth -14, so there is precedence of him just doing something like that.

Though he did manage to create a form of peace between the various sides, and seeing as in the previous episode some of the characters mentioned universe hopping, maybe he'd offer to take some people that want to leave back to his universe.

I think it's the Baroness, who is confused about what the Bat just said about the cultists being cleansed.

 

True, though Karl's attempts at reform don't really seem to be going anywhere and while the current society didn't genocide millions of people, they are still engaging in the murder of people they deem to be 'subhuman', like homosexuals.

 

...Are we going to need a Handsome Paul meme now? But seriously, Is she really so foolish to think the conventional journalist and the heavily armoured, clearly proficient Lantern in front of her are the same person?

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

Remarkable. That's not in the bio for the usual Baroness Blitzkrieg. Doesn't seem too effective, though. I suppose it makes mincemeat out of regular humans... Guessing she has to pick between speed and energy blasts.

Yes, any good energy projector would check their backstop. Still, I guess it's easier for them to cover up any accidental collateral damage.

Well, that got her to start talking. Of course, she made a critical mistake there by stopping. Then again, she probably has backup en-route.

And yet still marvellously form-fitting. Though I doubt it's quite as body-paint-tier as the usual comic-book costume...

...Or could feasibly force him to go. Honestly, she's probably taking the best route she can considering his displayed level of power.

Huh. So, Paul Freeman could be anywhere? I thought he'd be accompanied at all times, still.

Evidently their surveillance technology is a bit behind other Earths... Or their willingness to abuse it.

Are you seriously taking the moral high ground on that hill, OL?

Seriously, I hope he tries to go after OL. That man needs his head pulled out of his arse.

Huh, so the other heroes knew of a way to go looking, but not that Overman had taken the plunge. Then again, it's not the first time he's done it, it seems.

Honestly, spin it the right way, people would applaud it. Claim he's... Spreading a shining example of the rightness of National Socialism to other worlds! Just for that extra irony...

Presumably she'd had an open channel to her teammates the whole time.

Seriously, I get the feeling the only thing stopping him from going full Hitler is Overman...

Ah, OL. Rubbing new... acquaintances the wrong way as usual, just by being yourself...

Because she wasn't doing a very good job of it. I'm guessing the local Green Lantern (the one wielding Alan Scott's old, AI-less ring) is not all that proficient at anything besides basic constructs and blasts... Could be quite the eye-opener for the Reichsmen to see a real Lantern in action.

Well, looks like someone higher up wants to chat.

That would be young Fledermaus, I take it. Well, not so young now...

Good to see he's at least kept his gear up to scratch over the years.

Heh, surprisingly jolly for a Nazi. But then, he's old enough to not give a damn about propriety.

...Still strange that a fascist world has superheroes. Given the focus on conforming to the norm, anyone who'd dress up in strange outfits to go out and fight evil would have to be a little unconventional... I mean, they could be a special forces branch of the military, since weird shit still happens, fascist state or not, and people will still get superpowers...

Keep in mind, he was a teenager during World War II, putting him in his eighties at this point, at minimum. Either he's in real good shape, or he's got access to some good Kryptonian medical tech.

Neatly summed up. Of course, that took about thirty chapters to learn.

Huh. Well, without a proper Batman, someone has to step up and play 'World's Greatest Detective'...

And wildly understating the difference... Though if Overman gave reports on the alternate worlds he's visited, they know there are worlds where they lost.

...And to dodge the aggressively hostile guards chasing you. Can't forget that.

Fingers crossed he can be made use of, rather than just frothing at the mouth... Assuming he doesn't collapse into a puddle of regret when he realises what he did do.

...Wow, a reasonable ceasefire? This truly is a topsy-turvy world!

I suppose when you've lived as long as Der Fledermaus has, nothing surprises you. Still, quite a surprise to see such a sensible response to, "I'm from another universe, I'm here to help stop demons killing your world." At least we get to skip the whole 'OL beats everybody' scene.. for now. Seriously, I hope Leatherwing pulls some dumb-ass move on OL and gets slapped down. Fellow sounds like a right prat.

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Double Space.